Building C/C++ Programs

You can build Visual C++ projects either in Visual Studio or on the command line. The Visual Studio IDE uses MSBuild to build projects and solutions. On the command line, you can use the C/C++ compiler (cl.exe) and linker (link.exe) to build simple projects. To build more complex projects on the command line, you can use MSBuild or NMAKE. For an overview about how to use Visual Studio to build projects and solutions, see Building Applications in Visual Studio.

Describes how to configure both Visual Studio and the command line to use the 64-bit toolset and how to target 64-bit architectures, and discusses common migration issues when code is moved to 64-bit architectures.